How to Be Good at Yoga Sutra 1.12: Peace

Photo by Guilherme Stecanella on Unsplash

---

Make your heart and mind friends and you will have peace of mind.
​- Suzy Kassem

---

This blog post is part of our Yoga Sutras series.  
​Want to start at the beginning?

Sutra 1.12 - अभ्यासवैराग्याअभ्यां तन्निरोधः -
​Abhyasa Vairagyabhyam Tannirodhah
Peace of Mind Comes Through Practice and Non-Attachment

You may be wondering, “wait a minute…we skipped from Sutra 1.3 to 1.12!”  It’s true. If I covered every Yoga Sutra in this series, it would take us 16⅓ years to get us through them all.

Luckily, these threads are so terse (and when read one after the other become like poetry) that we can conveniently condense the Sutras between those formally in our exploration within these discussions.  So while we are specifically looking at Sutra 1.12, we’ll also take a look at Sutras 1.4 - 1.11.

In Sutra 1.4, Patanjali mentions that when we are not experiencing yoga as explained in the first three Sutras, we are convinced that our True Self is whatever our mind thinks we are.  This perception of ourselves is usually derived from our experience of the world through our senses.

Sutras 1.5 - 1.11 describe the five types of thought forms the mind has which cause us to identify with our senses. These thought forms can be painful or pleasant. 

Read More